I’ve never had a vision and rarely, alas, have even seen anything out of the ordinary. An exception was the genesis of this poem, an agent of death in the landscape of a peaceful, pokey little island where not too much is ever going on except the grass, the trees, the wildlife and the ocean. Which is why one keeps going back. But the idyllic can be smashed in an instant.

BONE

I’ll never forget the day the Bone flew over the island
Two thousand feet screaming east northeast
Really rumbling, the norteamericano B-1 bomber
I had to ask myself what is it doing over these sovereign isles?
These godamn gringos are trespassing our country again
I’m going to do something about this–
But I did nothing but stare in awe
And the strange sonic rumbling of power and death from above
Nuclear warheads on time and budget
Low and slow over Lyall Harbour
Was he lost?
That’s hardly likely
Where he was from or going there has never been a word
But that it was a Bone and flying low over Lyall, over Saturna Island
Which, granted, is below the 49th parallel
I remember sitting in my deck chair and suddenly I was wondering–
What is that effing sound from on high? And looking up
And seeing that bomber and ID-ing it immediately
All those back issues of “Air International” finally paying off!
Cover story on the Bone one time, including schematics
I read the whole thing with interest–
Not like it’s new, the Bone’s been around more than twenty years
Nuclear holocaust on target and designed for that mission
Nuclear or conventional we will be going strong

It was the primeval all encompassing throaty roar
Of those jet engines out of nowhere that got me going
Sitting here on this deck above Lyall Harbour on a July afternoon
I looked up, I was so proud
I instantly knew what that strange aircraft was
It was a low roar, death-like
Ugly and disturbing because of its strangeness
The big D from above, low and slow

That sound was the apocalypse from above
The delivery of mechanistic death out of nowhere, now
It was a sound never heard in these peaceful skies
Where the planes are light
Airplanes drone around here, they don’t snarl
The B1-B heavy bomber–
I was involved in a test flight gone horribly wrong
To have him cruising low over Saturna
Maybe the crew just didn’t know the border dips around here
That these Southern Gulf Islands are Canadian–
‘Oh dear, Chuck, we may have just transected the Canadian border
‘What is our course?’
That guttural, growling sound from above. What is that noise?
And there it was, the lone lost B-1 Bone on top of the trees
I never looked into the event in any way, not even calling 911
It just came cruising by at a couple thousand feet
It made it easy to identify
You knew what you were looking at if you knew what to look for
Four GE-102 turbofans screaming fire
Variable sweep wings in low and slow
A hundred forty six feet of monster plane anywhere anytime–
Was Whidbey Island doing something?
That’s a naval station anyway
Had the lights gone out at old Fort Lewis?

‘You do what you need to in the changing requirements of the mission
‘Get all your rest
‘Study the flight plan
‘You’re taking us low and slow over Saturna Island
‘Make it smooth, operational
‘Cruising low it’s unlikely you’re lost, old buddies
‘We know where you get your wings and everything about you
‘No one is lost in a Bone crackling over Saturna Island
‘The Bone always knows where it is and what it’s doing
‘We are not joyriding at Whatcom County Fair, folks
‘Just a little death from above…. ’
It’s that startling, crackling sound coming from the sky, you look up
Big, throaty bird

Imagine the destructive damage deliverable by the Bone
‘What it has done and can do I will do
‘I will obey orders or is this some other org. than the USAF?
‘What I’m doing here I’m admittedly not all that sure myself
‘I think we cleared it with the Mounties… is that a joke?
‘Nice view
‘We fly pretty high so most of the time we’re just lookin’ at sky
‘And that old earth seems a far away place if we see it at all
‘We fly at night a lot
‘From up here there’s the occasional light way down there
‘On a long flight we spell off
‘Like if we’re goin’ to Asia or somethin’?
‘You have to stretch out on the long missions
‘If we pop a few pills it’s all in the plan as depicted in press releases
‘I don’t ever read ’em
‘M’am, we defend freedom.’

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You know how it is when something unexpected happens and you’re suddenly plunged into turmoil. You’re shocked and frustrated and just want to solve the problem but, for a time at least, you feel overwhelmed. But you know this situation won’t do. It can’t stand. You have to act and it doesn’t matter where that might take you. You’re on it. And some times, if your luck holds, you get a poem out of it. That’s what happened here. Eighteen lines. Three stanzas of six lines each. It all works out. And if that poem turns out to be a love poem that’s great because there doesn’t seem to be that many of them around these days. I’d be happy to learn I’m misinformed on this.

LOST AND FOUND

I felt the desolation of unexpected streets
Of life without you as if I could lose you
The terrible truth of that
Walking in anger and urgency to fix the situation
What would I be like in this world without you?
I would be so alone

I was alone on these undiscovered streets
I knew getting through this angry walk
I knew when I found you
You became a part of me
I could never lose you
But I was looking for you on these never dreamt of streets

I knew getting through this angry walk I’d find the way back to you
I was determined to fix the situation
What a day would be like without you
That was a never to be dreamt of thing, love
I knew I could never be alone
When I found you on these unexpected streets

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I bought “Complete Postcards From the Americas Poems of Road and Sea” University of California Press ed. (1976) off a remainder table at the long since defunct Britnell’s Bookshop near Yonge and Bloor in Toronto, kept it for years then inexplicably donated it somewhere in a crazed book reduction initiative, “What was I thinking?” category.

Have you ever done this? Got rid of some titles then later become overwhelmed by remorse and contrition when you go looking for something and realize that you have foolishly flung it away? Had to scrounge up the VPL’s lone copy to get the text of the poem below that I had never forgot. Just something about “Samoyed dogs are climbing up” that still gets me as mysterious, evocative and strange. So that’s where the name of this blog comes from. I get it!

Of course, old Blaise didn’t write exactly that. He exactly wrote “grimpent des chiens samoyèdes”. Translation of this excellent volume was by Monique Chefdor.

Blaise blazed a new route through twentieth century poetry, wrote some astonishing novels and passed through VCR one time in the course of his many travels. I don’t think anyone here noticed.